Knaves

The knaves are a criminal organization that exists throughout most of the known colonies. On some smaller worlds they'll run protection rackets, but on larger colonies, they are known to take up drug manufacturing & distribution, numbers rackets, etc. The Knaves are decentralized, with individual cells making decisions on how to best make money however, the central authority is known as the Rooks. In exchange for tribute (money) and loyalty, the Rooks set the borders and mediate disagreements between different cells. The actual identities of the Rooks are unknown except at higher levels in the gang, and going against the word of the Rooks often leads to over-the-top reprisals as a method of keeping the rank-and-file in line and encouraging loyalty.

They take many of the terms of their organization from chess, with the lowest level of new recruits referred to as "pawns", and "pawn cells" being on the lowest tier.

Moving up in hierarchy, next would be Knights, with Bishop tier cells being very few and those who constitute the "inner circle" that work directly with the Rooks and enforce their rules. There has been some speculation among law enforcement that a "Queen cell" may exist above the Rooks, but so far there has been no solid evidence of this

Often when executing hits against rival gangs or even Knave cells, a cell will leave a chess piece representative of it's level in the organization as a calling card.

Cells also often name themselves as an organization, and will sometimes use aliases when interacting with other Knave cells to protect their anonymity.